


Intoxication

by x_los



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-07
Updated: 2008-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ushas is the universe's most long-suffering female friend, and by all rights she should either kill Theta and Koschei or send them to Alcohol Enabled Idiotically Besotted Sex Addicts Anonymous. Separate centers, to prevent backsliding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intoxication

Title: Intoxication  
Rating: PG  
Author: [](http://x-los.livejournal.com/profile)[**x_los**](http://x-los.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing/Characters: Theta/Koschei, Ushas, Six/Ainley!Master, the Rani, Peri  
Prompt: Epic Fail, from [](http://best-enemies.livejournal.com/profile)[**best_enemies**](http://best-enemies.livejournal.com/) ' table challenge  
Beta: [](http://aralias.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://aralias.livejournal.com/)**aralias** is the reason you're not suffering through sentences so lengthy they'd make Nathaniel Hawthorne blush.  
Summary: Ushas is the universe's most long-suffering female friend, and by all rights she should either kill Theta and Koschei or send them to Alcohol Enabled Idiotically Besotted Sex Addicts Anonymous. Separate centers, to prevent backsliding.

 

Ushas’s Spatial Trigonometry homework was laid out before her like a bento box: neatly organized with great affection, entirely appetizing. Here was work that challenged her with its complication, rather than yet another of the tedious, repetitive mental endurance trials her professors were so _very_ fond of. It was as if they hoped to acclimate their still-malleable charges to an adult Time Lord's gravest responsibility: avoiding doing anything interesting.

Her door slammed open, probably gouging the wall where the door handle had been too forward with her previously immaculate paint. The spatial trigonometry papers rustled out of order. Ushas looked up to glare bloody dismemberment at Theta.

“If this is about anything other than you coming to tell me I’ve been awarded something particularly juicy, and that you’d like to offer congratulations and abjectly worship at the altar of my superior intellect, do me a favor. Instead of telling me whatever it is? Go fuck yourself. It'd be a better use of your time, I’m sure.”

“Regarding that last bit about fucking me, I’ve just slept with Koschei." It tumbled out of Theta's motuh an an awkward gush, making it clear he'd been at pains not to interrupt her before. "Well, I’ve just found _out_ that I slept with him. I woke up naked in the grass behind the pitch in dire need of a shower, and there he was too, all ready to confirm my suspicions." Theta coughed and hurried on. "Apparently the actual encounter all happened last night, under the stars and the influence of several Trion Tequilas. And some cheap girly wine coolers. And I think there may have been fruit wine of his own making that tasted something like motor oil mixed with despair. It’s all quite vague after a point…”

“Oh sodding _Rassilon_ , Theta.” Ushas pushed her elbows into the piles of papers before her, no longer caring that she was disturbing what precious little order was left to them. She propped her head in her hands.

“I’ve _got_ to tell him it was a complete accident, and that we’re, you know, the greatest of friends to have ever been the best of pals since Rassilon and Omega or, I don’t know, some other reference that might appeal to his sense of entitlement,” Ushas here refrained from pointing out that the Time Lords he’d mentioned had also had some very ill-considered sexcapades, letting Theta careen on, “and that I _really_ am _quite_ sorry, and then we’ll never speak of it again! Right? _Right._ Thanks for listening, Ushas! You’re a darling.”

Theta exited via the door at nearly a sprint, no doubt eager to inflict his terrible plan upon the world at the earliest possible instant. This left Ushas to blink, bewildered, at her suddenly empty doorframe. Theta had not bothered to shut it behind him in his rush to doom.

A rap came on her window, and then, uninvited again, a visitor.

“Why can’t you use hallways?” Ushas sighed deeply. “People do, you know. They—they _walk_ , you see, to destinations, and then when they reach them? They knock, much like that just now, well done there. But _then_ they actually _wait_ for the occupant to _invite_ them in.”

“Do they?” Koschei asked mildly, settling himself on her bed. “How very quaint of them. As I’ve mentioned on several occasions, living directly above you means never having to say I’m sorry. Or is that just being me? Anyway, via the fire escape, I bring you tidings of great joy.”

“Oh stop quoting human lit, Theta's not even here for you to impress. Look, I already know.” She did so _love_ being talked at.

“You couldn’t possibly,” Koschei corrected her serenely. “You see, I finally did it. After a frankly embarrassing amount of time telling myself that it would pass, after realizing that _destiny_ would not idly _pass_ like an inglorious bowel movement, after several months of ensuing subtle innuendo and flirtation—the like of which no seducer has ever before equaled, Ushas, I assure you—and, finally, after the preparation of an absolutely perfect picnic basket, when the beloved proved denser than a black hole, including a delicious home-made fruit wine—which took ages, I might add—I have made sweet, mutually drunken love to Theta.”

“Congratulations,” Ushas deadpanned. “And they say romance and informed consent alike are dead.”

“Informed consent is for those lucky few whose soul mate isn’t bloody _stupid_ , Ushas.”

Koschei sighed and plopped himself down gracelessly. “If you only _knew_ the dazzling innuendo I’ve come up with! The sweet exchanges of confidences, the sheer, stupefying number of human novels I’ve had to endure just to court that boy—you would throw up all over your spatial trigonometry. Which,” he looked up at it, cocking his head with detached interest, “incidentally, looks entirely out of order." He frowned. "Bizarre, given that this is your room and not, for example, Theta's." He sighed with a put-upon air, but it failed to edge out his moony smile. "I’m going to have to teach him to clean up after himself, if ever we’re to live together.”

“Wait, now you’re living together?” Ushas scooted her chair around with a couple of hops to face Koschei, who was now reclining in an indolent pose, one hand behind his head, the other toying with the dangling threads at the corner of an ugly throw pillow an aunt had bought her. He was smiling at the ceiling like it was his wedding registry. In his addled vision, it probably was.

“Not _currently_ , obviously. But, now we’re together, it can only be a matter of time before he realizes he’s my completion, and as such we should probably get a flat.” It was how matter of fact he was about his ridiculousness that scared her. He continued to eye the wall dreamily, enjoying the train of thought too much to get off just yet. “The one being in the universe who’s perfectly suited to me, who was probably born expressly _for_ me—oh, that’s a neat way of putting it. I’ll have to tell him that one some day. Anyway, eventually we’ll marry, in the course of things. Theta will probably want an autumn wedding. I’ve given some thought to the arrangements, incidentally. Not a lot, of course - merely glanced idly at a catalog or two—” He leaned up, perky, and looked at her directly. “You can be Sponsor for our first daughter, if you like.”

“Oh happy day.”

“No, really, I mean it.”

“Terrifying as it may be, I think you _do._ Koschei, what are you going to do if Theta doesn’t feel quite the same way?”

Koschei blinked. “You mean, about the autumn wedding? But Ushas, Theta _loves_ foliage. He said so three years ago… he was wearing that maroon robe and we were skipping Astronavigation, if I recall correctly.”

“No. No, Koschei, what if he doesn’t view this as a revelation? What if he doesn’t want to do it again?” To forestall inevitable digressions regarding how he would live celibate for his beloved, but Theta would have to understand that he’d need to masturbate _very frequently_ , preferably with Theta in the room watching, and oh, surely the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to create an entirely asexual Theta who could look on that for centuries and not be moved to at least do it _for_ him, Ushas continued, “What if he doesn’t want to be _with_ you?”

Koschei sat up fully and frowned. “Did he say as much to you?” Suddenly Koschei was grave, with a note of menace to his tone. In an instant, he became someone to be taken seriously. “Did he drop by to cry on your impartial shoulder about how it was all a little _mistake_?”

“He might have intimated _slightly_ that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the direction things had taken.”

Koschei nodded, stood, and drummed his fingers on the windowsill. He stared out at the sky, expression blank. It was a moment before he spoke.

“Theta needs me, Ushas. He needs me like _air_. He just doesn’t see it yet, that’s all.” He threw himself back down on the mattress, looking horribly dejected.

Ushas got up and sat down on the other end, feeling twinges of what another girl might have experienced as sympathy, but what she though of as light nausea brought on by inconceivable stupidity.

“Well,” Ushas shifted uncomfortably on the bed, “how did you leave it?”

“He had to go _shower_ ,” Koschei hissed. “That _fucker_. Oh, I should have _known_. I thought he was just dazed, but no, he had the audacity to _rue_ me.”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Ushas moved to, cautiously and awkwardly, pat him on the head. A sort of open-palmed, light hitting.

“Why, just because that stubborn little _idiot_ is sullying our worlds-shaking passion with bourgeois regret, insulting the profundity of my feelings for him?” Koschei sneered. “Why would you imagine I would even be put _out_?”

“Do you talk like this to him?” Ushas ventured. “Because I can see how that level of intensity might be a turn off. If you’re Theta, for example, and commitment-phobic as the suns are red.”

“No,” Koschei dismissed her with an annoyed flick of his hair. “Mostly we just talk about banal, friendly, inoffensive subjects. Though I might have gotten a little colorful during our tryst in the grass. Some choice stuff about his white skin and the red grass and how I wanted to fuck him until it looked like he was bleeding all over, maybe. But only because I was sure he wouldn’t remember. Look, I was _really_ drunk though. And stop petting me, will you? I’m not your dog.”

Irritated, Ushas withdrew the offending hand. “So where do you go from here, then, Mastermind?”

Koschei bit his lower lip, rolled it briefly between his teeth, and sat up with decision. “I will, of course, agree with Theta entirely. When the little sod finally plucks up his meager courage and comes to ask if we can, as he will with his usual devastating eloquence no doubt put it, ‘never speak of this again,’ I’ll go so far as to summon up a relieved expression just for the occasion.” Koschei was up now, heading back towards the window.

“That sounds like retreat,” Ushas’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Koschei countered pleasantly, slipping out the way he’d come.

Ushas poked her head out the window, craning her neck up to follow his progress. “What are you thinking, Koschei?”

“In good time. Thanks for listening, Ushas. You’re a darling.”

 

***

 

“ _Ushas_!” It sought her out in the darkness, slinking past the double-locked door: the whiny, intolerable cry of an aggrieved Theta.

She heaved a mighty sigh. It had been three weeks since her last theater of interruptions, and she had a rather crucial exam tomorrow. So did Theta and Koschei, not that you’d ever be able to tell from their unvaried routine of slacking off.

“What?” she croaked. “What could you possibly want of me at this hour? It’s very nearly time to wake up! No, I will not help you cram. Go away, Theta. Bother someone else. Try Koschei, I’m sure he’ll tolerate you.”

“I did bother Koschei though! Rather intimately—that’s why I need to talk to you!”

Ushas whimpered into her pillow, and stood up to let him in.

“What happened _now_?”

Theta barged past her. “I got drunk again is what happened. ‘Have some wine, Thete, it’ll relax you for the exam. Oh, just another glass can’t hurt, or another bottle or three, isn’t this vintage great? Say, Thete, I have this crick in my neck, aches awfully, think I slept on it funny, would you just,’ and it all went to hell from there.”

“Have you ever considered—”

“He _moans_ when you rub his neck, Ushas.” Theta interrupted her. “Like, like a _prostitute_ or something, I don’t know!” His wide rabbit eyes were wobbling, big blue irises like lost dinghies in a troubled sea.

She took a breath and began again. “Have you ever considered that your propensity for sleeping with him when you’re thoroughly intoxicated might mean something?”

“Nope.” It was a firm, round word, and it plopped out of Theta’s mouth like a ripe plum.

“And why would that be?”

“Well we’re friends,” Theta laughed warmly. “I mean, sure, I like him a lot, but I don’t exactly want to plan out an early autumn wedding or anything.”

“How does Koschei feel about the earlier Incident?”

“Oh, the same I think.” Theta dismissed the question airily. “But I must seem awful. Like I’m terminally unable to make up my mind or something.”

Ushas really had nothing to say to that one. “Did you just sneak out on him, then?” she asked instead.

“Er, maybe.” Theta rubbed his neck awkwardly. “Look, we’ve still got that exam tomorrow. I thought I could maybe open the book beforehand, crazed though the notion seems.”

“You ran screaming from the morning after, didn’t you?”

Theta flushed like none other. His face blossomed scarlet like sped up nature footage of flowers blooming. “I’ll talk to him first thing in the morning, I swear!”

Ushas smirked. “Was the sex, at least, good?”

“Oh, shut up,” Theta hissed. “Be serious. I may have really hurt my best friend’s feelings. The ones he says he doesn’t have. Fuck.”

“Is that code for ‘it was wretched, why, oh why, do I keep drunkenly slipping and landing with my dick in his arse?”

“No,” Theta snapped, “it really isn’t, alright?”

“Oh, so defensive! Don’t want to kiss and tell? Protecting Koschei’s honor. If I didn’t know better, I’d say—”

“But you do know better,” Theta sidelined her, “because I told you so. Good luck on the exam.” This time, he closed the door properly.

There was a polite little golf clap from the open window. Fortunately for Koschei’s amateur espionage efforts, Theta had awful night vision. Ushas, however, had noticed Koschei’s shoe dipping into the top of the window frame ever so slightly from the moment Theta had entered her room.

“In vino veritas,” Koschei snickered from the dark.

“I can’t believe you let him top.” Ushas retired to her bed, exhausted by their drama. Koschei slipped over the sill and came to perch on the rim.

“I thought last time he might have been intimidated by that aspect of it.” Koschei quickly found his favorite worry toy, the Ugly Throw-Pillow of Aunt Bazilar. “I decided to provide him with a more non-threatening experience. Sort of ease him into the situation, if you will. Besides, when we’re together, I fully intend for that to be a part of our sex life. As soon as I’ve expressed my… lingering annoyance with his failure to readily comprehend our relationship. Via fucking him through that lumpy mattress of his until he’s sorry, naturally.”

“He didn’t seem to be Captain of Team Comprehension quite yet.”

“Well, no, but then I didn’t expect he would be. You see, I’ve a new plan, Ushas.” Oh how she dreaded those words. “I’m going to do this over, and over, and over again.”

“Because sloppy, drunk Theta really does it for you.”

“No! Well, yes, but that’s beside the point. Theta being Theta, he’ll wallow in guilt and keep coming back to try and be friends again. But we’re not friends,” Koschei mused. “Even when we were quite small, even before I knew what this was, I wanted him.” His voice was small. He took a breath and continued in a more neutral tone.

“Sex leads to attachment, chemically. The release of oxytocin, the increase in fondness for a long term sexual partner. It’s simple biological inevitability. You of all people know how it works. Oh, stop looking at me like that. It’s not pathetic; it’s _science_. You should see how much he wants me the instant he looks at alcohol—whatever he said, I didn’t give him that much to drink tonight. His body is going to learn it’s mine, and, eventually, _he’ll_ ask _me_ to have him.” He smiled, and Ushas thought he looked a little sick.

“Maybe he’s just a slut when he’s drunk,” she offered, the theory slipping out almost against her volition. “He might sleep with the nearest warm body. It could have nothing to do with you.”

Koschei laughed harshly. “Well then, I’m never going to let him get drunk near anyone but me, am I?”

 

***

 

In the spirit of scientific inquiry, and deeply disgusted with them both, Ushas decided to get Theta royally smashed. She brought along a little atomizer of pepper extract that her mother had insisted she bring to the academy with her ‘for protection.’ She had no intentions of ‘making sweet mutually drunken love’ with Theta, no matter how interesting an experience Koschei found it to be. (She had a hard time making any sense out of his lurid purple descriptions of their ‘bouts of thrilling love-fencing,’ but it was clear that Koschei was far from disappointed with his conquest.)

She barged into Theta’s room without knocking. He didn’t seem to care, just looked up at her with a pleasant, helpful smile. Ushas felt cheated.

“We’re drinking.” She pulled the least offensively spotty glasses out of his ill-kept cabinet.

Theta obligingly set down his pen. “Awful day?”

“Not exactly, no. I’ll explain later.” She poured heavily. “Cheers!”

A bottle and a long discussion of one of their professors’ terrible hair (which always looked to be engaged in a long, bitterly fought campaign to consume his face) later, Ushas asked, in a dull monotone, “Is it hot in here?”

Theta frowned. “Adjust the climate settings, if you like. Anyway, sometimes I think I can still see crumbs from breakfast caught in it? Like a spider's web? Maybe that's how it feeds--and, my God, his awful beard. Koschei wants to grow one. I’ve been trying to subtly hint against it. Mostly through wincing elaborately when he mentions it, and then telling him I think I’ve sprained something when he gets huffy and asks what’s up.”

Two more bottles after that, Ushas ventured to ask a thoroughly soused Theta what his objection to the beard plan was.

“It might suit his face,” she pondered it. “His chin’s a bit unfortunate. It’s too weak for his personality.”

“It is _not_!” Theta warbled, scandalized. “He’s got a good, strong chin…” he trailed off. “A huge, firm chin.”

Ushas raised an eyebrow. She was enjoying a slight buzz from the alcohol, but no more, having taken a tablet that would prevent its absorption into her bloodstream.

“So, you’re drunk?”

“Yep!” Theta answered cheerfully. “Thoroughly!”

She sat down next to him on the bed, patted his leg in a brusque, friendly manner. “What should we do now, then?”

She flopped backwards on the bed. Theta cheerfully poked her in the stomach with his finger. It was a sort of unselfconscious, brotherly move. Noting in it screamed “I am a drink-enabled sex addict, so let us kiss with tongues.” It didn’t even whisper anything similar.

“Oh, try and figure out who told Koschei beards were ‘dashing,’ so I can punch them. Thus far my theories include: Professor Borusa. He dislikes me just enough, and is attempting something _really_ dubious with his own stubble. A sort of face-topiary, and that’s me being generous. Drink more, Ushas! One name does not a list of suspects make, and I suspect we’ll be more creative the drunker we are.”

And so they got drunker still. Ushas unbuttoned a little bit of her top, rolling her eyes, yet firm (much like that recently revealed flesh) in her dedication to Science.

“I mean,” Theta slurred, “he’s just gotten so _weird_ lately.”

“Who has?” Oh for Omega’s sake, who else had Theta talked about all night?

“Koooooscheiiiiii.” His whine was probably disturbing canines the city over with its high frequency. “I mean, when he talks to me now, he’s so _inoffensive_. It’s like he’s hiding something from me!” He looked over at Ushas, plaintive. “Why doesn’t he just say what’s on his mind? Has he told you anything?”

 _I can’t shut him up,_ Ushas thought, _I lock my window and he just breaks the locks and starts in on how he’ll either die or kill you if you wear the tight blue robe and sit by Drax instead of him one more time. He just starts en media res, like the same endless conversation is continuing on where it left off. I think, in his one-track labyrinth of a mind, it is._

“Oh no,” she said. “Not a word. But you know Koschei: discrete.”

Theta nodded sagely. And Drunkenly. “He’s just so—” Theta sighed. “I think he’s still feeling weird about the accidental sex. The several occasions of accidental sex. But I can’t loose him, Ushas! I don’t know what I’d do if he weren’t my best friend!”

“Presumably get the hell off this planet and move on.” She winced at the taste of the cheap alcohol, but there was no way was she spending good credit on something she wasn’t even planning on properly enjoying. Besides, Theta had low standards.

“I can’t imagine the rest of my life without Koschei,” he moaned, further proving her point. He wore a too-serious expression she recognized, though she usually saw it from beneath a terrible pudding bowl haircut.

Oh God. And he didn’t _know_ , wouldn’t be _told_ like a sensible person: that was the sick part. Frank confrontation with the truth would just drive him into sputtering denial. Theta was squirmier than a Gallifreyan singing fish, and twice as bizarre.

“You’ll have to be separated from him eventually. Surely you’d like to get married?" Well she could _prod_ , couldn’t she? “Have a family?

“Oh, I don’t think Koschei would like that.” Theta frowned. “The other day a girl in class asked to borrow my notes, and he accidentally smacked her books out of her hand.” He bent forward conspiritorily and whispered. “Only I don’t really think it was an accident, Ushas.” He leaned back and looked contemplative. “He’s a very protective friend. I’m so lucky to have him. It’s like we—”

Theta abruptly turned puce. Could this be what he looked like on the threshold of revelation? Ushas leaned forward eagerly. Perhaps this was it! The shock of recognition on his face, and he would open his mouth to — vomit over the side of the bed.

Not a watershed moment, then. Theta continued to heave onto the ground for some minutes. Ushas tried again with her awkward pat, though she’d since upgraded it. It now came complete with little circular rubbing motions, one every half a second, with the precise comfortlessness of an assembly line.

“Do you want some water, Thete?” Rarely did she feel tenderness. This was more pity. That anyone so intelligent could be so utterly _stupid_ was beyond the scope of her comprehension.

“Yes, please,” Theta sniffled. “Thanks for listening. You really are a darling, Ushas.” He screwed up his face, then hustled over the sink to continue as before, making weak little wretching noises.

“I know,” she grumbled viciously, wetting a cloth for his face from the unused (she didn’t want to ask why he had it, because that would have meant receiving one of Theta’s inevitably convoluted, ridiculous explanations), relatively sanitary (for Theta’s room) fish tank. “Oh, believe me, I know.”

 

***

 

“So how did it go?”

Ushas cracked an eye open.“Murdering you for waking me up? I don’t know, I haven’t done it yet. Give me a minute. I’m hoping for ‘quite smoothly, with a minimum of inconvenience to me.’”

“Hilarious, but no. Getting Theta drunk, obviously. Your little experiment? Don’t keep me in suspense, now.”

She blinked. “How did you know? You couldn’t have talked to him, he had passed out when I left. Did you break into his room and surmise from his unconscious, vomit-dappled form? Rassilon, Koschei, do you watch him _sleep_ as well?”

“Only after sex,” Koschei said primly. “And do you honestly think a whole evening goes by where I don’t know exactly what Theta’s doing? Besides, it was clear from the instant it occurred to you that you would take it upon yourself to conduct the experiment. Exceptionally convenient, as I had no other way of finding out via a source so unlikely to take advantage of Theta’s…” he hesitated, “delicate condition."

She evaluated him, perched on the edge of her bed, and took pity on the moody little vulture. What point was there in saying ‘I think Theta _is_ in love with you, but he’s also a complete moron’? Either Koschei, with his unshakable, insane fixation, knew in his black little hearts that Theta loved him, or nothing she said could possibly overcome the doubts that might lurk beneath his mad, over-confident assurance that Theta would come to him. Perhaps no one was as brave as Koschei unless they were first and foremost terrified.

“You have had in your life a great many stupid plans, Koschei. But shockingly, I think this one might not actually be entirely idiotic.”

“He didn’t touch you!” Koschei crowed. “I _told_ you. He’s gagging for me and me alone! The slightest alcoholic pretext and he’s off!”

“He threw up on my shoe a little, if it counts. He’s fine,” she forestalled his accusations that she’d abandoned Theta in his hour of need. “Passed out, as I said.”

“Bless him, the superbly idiotic, lightweight lamb,” Koschei said with some fondness. He frowned. “I just hope he doesn’t choke to death throwing up in the night and have to regenerate.” But Koschei was too buoyant to be worried long. “So you think it’ll work, then.” His tone was smug, but the fervor of a religious fanatic made his eyes bright as lit pyres.

“I think,” she said cautiously, “that’s it’s not an _awful idea_.”

 

***

 

“So how _is_ that plan of yours going, then?” The Rani raised an eyebrow at the Master as he ducked a quick glance back into the lab, making sure the Doctor was still firmly captured. And cozy, apparently. She was pretending not to have noticed the way he’d adjusted the straps to make them more comfortable, and to get a brief, glancing touch of the Doctor’s sensitive inner wrist with a suspiciously ungloved hand that had lingered a second too long.

“Has anyone ever told you that silence is golden, Ushas?” The Master seethed much more impressively now as an adult, but it was really little more than an evolution of that old familiar sulk. “If not, I hope you’ll let me be the first.”

“Now Master, don’t be surly. Renegade Time Lord to renegade Time Lord, is the Doctor still innebriating himself in order to succumb to your charms without having to acknowledge his own responsibility? Or has he at long last acquired something like a life? Because it’s amply clear from your charming stalker routine that _you’ve_ yet to.”

The Master stepped a little closer to her, and spoke in a purred growl that probably did wonders for the Doctor after a flimsy Pimm’s Cup. “You’re treading on dangerous ground, my dear. You’d be wise to _drop it_.”

The Rani rolled her eyes. “ _You’d_ be wise to give up this farce. Isn’t eight centuries sufficient proof that you two can’t successfully maintain a cordial conversation, much less a relationship?”

The Master’s persistent leer took on a little more color. “I very much enjoy the arguing, actually. He’s so deliciously…mm, _responsive._. I was particularly fond of the last one. My own work, you know, from the kill to the formative hours. Time consuming and heartsbreaking, of course, but the resulting product of my efforts was—” he chuckled fondly, “well worth the investment, and I could hardly resist such an exquisite expression of our connection. But this Doctor’s predecessor was a trifle standoffish. He didn’t let me _provoke_ him quite so enjoyably. Indignation’s always sat so prettily on him. I could go on about his third—”

“Please don’t.” The Rani held up a well-manicured hand. “I was finished with this decades before graduation. I just want both of you idiots to leave me in peace, so that I can conduct my experiments without wasting more precious time on the pair of you.”

“I’m afraid the Doctor finds those charming experiments of yours rather objectionable,” the Master sneered. “And I’m here until I can give him exactly what he deserves.” His fact took on that same sick, unbalanced cast she’d seen the beginnings of when he was a boy. “I owe him a death. He had the sheer audacity to try and burn me. _Me!_ ” She would have called the look on his face now a pout, if it weren’t ludicrous to say of a man of his age. “And I was interrupted just when I was about the rather poignantly remind him of that interesting time we were drinking in Las Vegas while he was trap—”

“Oh, spare me your lover’s tiffs! ‘Rani, he burned me to a cinder!’ ‘Rani, he’s killed more people, I just can’t bear it! And his rubbish beard is _ruining_ our accidental sex life!’”

“One moment, he doesn’t like the beard?”

“Oh for the—”

“But it’s dashing!”

“I _loathe_ you both.”

“But I’ve had the beard for _centuries!_ ” the Master muttered, looking stricken. “And all this time - do you think if I shaved, he would—”

“Look,” the Rani cut him off, “I’ll take the girl out wildflower picking for a bit and tell her it’s For Evil. Buy a pint of lager—I know, that would be insufficient to intoxicate a child at her vortex ceremony, but it should be more than enough of a pretext for the both of you. Call it a last drink between enemies or some nonsense. Then will you agree to give up on this complete nonsense about stealing earth’s scientists and using the planet as some form of power base and let me get on with my work? As if human minds could be of any use to you other than in your incessant quest to annoy him. I don’t know why he’s fooled, except that the minute you enter a room, his intelligence drops to that of one of his little pets. There’s something for you: you make him _stupid._ I do hope you’re proud.”

“Always and immeasurably,” the Master rejoined, voice smooth as if it had been oiled. “Good lager?”

“Oh for—we’re in Northern England in the 19th century, what else do you think they have to do? I’m sure it’s exquisite. Oh, how your taste buds will revel.”

“I think I’ll have him fellate me,” the Master mused to himself, having moved on from the lager subject as soon as he voiced the passing thought. “It’s been some time since we did that. I’m eager to put that loud mouth of his to better use.” He _actually_ licked his lips lasciviously as though she wasn’t in the room to feel embarrassed for him.

The Rani wanted to throw something at him, but there was nothing around that wasn’t hard to get when one was a renegade and lacked the resources of the Time Lords. And then he didn’t have the decency to stop there.

“And he seems less likely to make his escape in the afterglow, this time around.” His look was thoroughly unashamed. “Perhaps afterwards he might…” he trailed off before he could completely humiliate himself. Coughed discretely.

“I’ll leave you to it.” The Rani bowed out with undignified haste.

 

***

 

The Rani sullenly picked her way through the trees, absently observing the girl before her as if she might actually be capable of doing anything worth watching out for. She wanted to give the two of them a wide temporal berth, so as not to accidentally wander in on anything she had no wish to see: either the sex acts themselves, or any of the potential hoped-for ‘snuggling’ the Master might be able to get in before the Doctor sobered up.

The brunette human suddenly whirled, eyes flashing and chest heaving like something off the cover of one of those cheap Mills and Boon novels the Rani had certainly never bought before at any point in her life. “How can you be so calm when unspeakable tortures are being committed on the poor Doctor at this very moment?!”

The Rani arched an eyebrow. The girl actually managed to _speak_ an interrobang. It was either remarkable or the single most revolting thing that had ever happened to English—a language the Rani had a rather low opinion of to begin with.

“Long practice.”

“Is he,” the girl swallowed hugely, “really hurting him, do you think?”

“Certainly. It’s apparently been some time since he had the opportunity to torture the Doctor. He seemed troubled by a great deal of stored up frustration.” The Rani smirked. “He’s probably providing your precious Doctor with a host of incredibly unique sensations. He always was rather creative. It’s a very well-stocked lab, and he’s something of an artist in his chosen medium. Or so I’ve heard,” from a guilty-morning-after Theta, euphemistically, but with annoying frequency, as the years at school wore on. “I expect he won’t stop until the Doctor begs him to—and this version looked rather proud, didn’t he? It may be some time before the Master manages to break him.”

“Oh, how could he?” The girl worked herself up over it, stamping a tiny foot.

The Rani laughed wryly at the other Time Lords’ hopelessness. “It’s what he lives for, I believe.”


End file.
